ReCore comes out this week, marking one of Microsoft's marquee games for the fall season alongside another entry in Keiji Inafune's startup Comcept. It's budget-priced, and while it has some genuinely good ideas and fun moments--review forthcoming--it certainly shows in the production values at times.

This kind of mid-tier, AA game has largely gone missing in recent years, as the industry stratifies toward blockbusters and indies. But these can be valuable to inject some fresh blood and personality into an almost-big-budget game. Why don't we see more B-tier releases get this kind of attention from their publishers? Should gamers rally around these small-but-not-too-small games to encourage a greater breadth, or does a budget price turn you off as a signal of its quality?

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